


dark days are pulling me (forward)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 22:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17170601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Grant returns from an op to find a surprise or two waiting for him.





	dark days are pulling me (forward)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jdphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/gifts).



> This is a Christmas gift for the wonderful, SPECTACULAR JD, who is my favoritest JD of all. Merry Christmas, hon! I'm so sorry it's late! <3
> 
> As for the rest of you: Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/etc! I hope you're all having a wonderful December. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! (And once you're done here, go check out the AMAZING fic JD wrote for me yesterday!) <3

Usually, handover briefings with whichever member of Alpha Team Grant leaves behind to run the base when he’s away are pretty simple. If he’s leaving, he’ll order them not to destroy his base, they’ll agree (in their own unique ways, depending on who he’s dealing with; Markham usually sticks to “yes, sir,” while Ortilla always pulls out a whole list of “but what if…” scenarios), and he’ll go. If he’s _returning_ , he’ll ask if anything happened while he was gone and they’ll say no.

It’s all very boring and routine, which is why Grant’s already shifted most of his attention to logging in to his laptop as he asks, “Anything interesting happen while I was out?”

Aldridge clears her throat. “Um, yeah, actually.”

He’s so used to the negative answer that it genuinely takes him a few seconds to process her response. “What, really?”

“Yeah,” she says, rocking back on her heels. “We…caught Jemma Simmons?”

Grant…was seriously not expecting that. He sits back in his seat, honestly speechless for probably the first time in his life.

“Well, I say _caught_ ,” Aldridge continues. “Really she just kinda walked up to the guys on guard and demanded to see you.”

“Jemma Simmons,” Grant says, just to be sure. “Tiny British scientist, hates Hydra with all her being, missing for the last six months— _that_ Jemma Simmons?”

“That’s the one,” she confirms.

“Huh.” He mulls that over for a minute. “What’d you do with her?”

“Patted her down—she was unarmed except for an ICER—and put her in an interrogation room,” she says. “Wasn’t sure what else to do, considering.”

Yeah, that’s fair. “An interrogation room? Not a cell?”

“Interrogation rooms are nicer,” Aldridge says, shrugging. “I didn’t wanna be inhospitable.”

Grant has to laugh.

“She’s in I4,” she adds. “If you wanna see her.”

“Yeah,” he says, pushing away from his desk. “I really, really do.”

After all, if she came all this way just to see _him_ , it’d be rude to leave her waiting.

To say nothing of the fact the curiosity is already close to driving him crazy.

 

+++

 

Grant’s expecting a lot of things when he walks into the interrogation room.

Finding Jemma in nothing but her underwear, though, is not one of them.

“What the fuck.”

For a second he worries something’s happened, some minion of his has misunderstood something and crossed  a line that means Grant’s gonna have to kill his whole family—but no, there are her clothes, neatly folded on the chair she _should_ be sitting in. (She’s lounging on top of the table instead; it’s…distracting.)

So why the hell ever she’s half-naked, it was her own doing. That’s…good, he guesses.

“Hello to you too, Grant,” she says mildly. “Took you long enough.”

“I was out,” he…defends? Why the hell is he defending himself to his ex-girlfriend? “You wanna tell me what the hell you’re up to?”

“What does it _look_ like?” she asks, condescension lacing her voice. It usually does, these days—or it did before she disappeared off the face of the planet for six months. Again. “I’m seducing you, obviously.”

Huh.

Grant takes a second to look— _really_ look—her over. Partially translucent lacy red bra, lacy red panties, freshly manicured nails, her hair straight and loose the way he likes it…yeah, seduction definitely checks out.

The question is _why_.

“Why?” he asks.

Jemma shrugs, exaggerating the motion so it does some really spectacular things to her breasts. (That’s a great bra she’s wearing.) “Why not?”

As far as reasons go, he’s used that one pretty frequently himself. This time, it’s not nearly good enough.

“Seriously,” he says. “Why seduce _anyone_ , let alone me?”

There was a time when she didn’t have to seduce him at all, when they both just took it as a given they’d be having sex every opportunity they got. But that was before the uprising—before she decided he was a monster, before he kidnapped her, before _Kara_.

It’s been a long time since they were on even _friendly_ terms, let alone sexual ones.

Jemma sighs, looking for all the world like explaining herself is some huge imposition.

“Because,” she says. “I want to get pregnant, which requires sex.”

Grant blinks. He tries and fails to come up with a response—hell, he can’t even grasp a simple thought. He just… _what_?

“As for why you…” She shrugs again, more naturally this time. “The only alternative was Fitz.”

A jealous rage rises swiftly in his chest, washing shock clean away. Later, he’ll think it’s a little weird—it’s been a long time since he cared enough about Jemma to get possessive over her.

In the moment, though, his jealousy’s also swept away his reason, so there’s no time for questioning his own reaction. He’s a little busy pinning Jemma to the table.

 

+++

 

After round three, the two of them pause long enough to relocate to Grant’s quarters, and after round seven, they relocate to the shower.

Which is where they hit a speed bump, because Jemma’s makeup washes away to reveal a hell of a bruise darkening the right side of her face.

“What happened?” Grant asks, running gentle fingers along the edge of it.

Jemma tips her head back, a motion that pretends to be aimed at rinsing the shampoo out of her hair but is definitely actually about getting Grant’s touch away from her bruise. He’d be amused if he weren’t so annoyed.

“Jemma,” he says, letting his tone sharpen it into a warning.

She sighs. “If you must know,” she says, voice barely audible over the water, “I was struck.”

Yeah, no kidding.

“With what?” he asks, instead of calling out the smart-ass answer. That bruise is way too wide to be just the work of a fist, and he needs to know what hit her—how else can he use it to kill whoever wielded it?

Instead of answering, she turns away to shut the water off, and Grant allows the delay. He lets the silence draw out as they dry off and dress—him in boxer briefs, Jemma in one of his shirts—and even as they settle into his bed.

Then he pins her beneath him and asks again. “With _what_ , Jemma?”

This close, he can see the tremble in her lips—the shadow in her eyes that reveals her casual tone for the lie it is.

Even without them, though, her simple answer of “A gun” would still piss him the hell off.

Jemma must read his fury in his face; she stretches beneath him, still trying for casual, and adds, “It could’ve been worse, of course. At least it wasn’t a bullet.”

He doesn’t know why he’s so angry—he hasn’t felt this kind of protective rage over Jemma since she almost killed him in San Juan—and for a second he wonders if maybe that 084 he found in Tibet this morning did something to him.

Then he reminds himself that he’s always been a possessive son of a bitch and pushes those thoughts aside in favor of putting on his most concerned face.

“Being pistol-whipped’s bad enough,” he says, and leans down to brush a kiss over the bruise. “Who was it? Anyone I know?”

“Why does it matter?” Jemma’s fingers trace a slow path along his torso, outlining his abs before coming to rest on the scars left over from her attempt on his life. “We’re enemies, remember?”

Grant laughs even as he slips a hand under her shirt ( _his_ shirt, and damn if that doesn’t bring on a whole new wave of possessive feelings) to do some touching of his own. “Yeah, that line worked a lot better before you showed up here to seduce me.”

She inhales sharply, though whether it’s down to his words or the little pinch he just gave her…even odds.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she says, even as she’s angling her hips to encourage his hand lower.

“No?” He dips his head to kiss her lips this time, lets it draw out, slow and sweet. “Choosing me to be the father of your child doesn’t change things?”

Jemma’s eyes closed at some point during the kiss; now, they open again to regard him seriously.

“Like I said,” she murmurs, “Fitz was the only other option.”

“And you decided a Hydra-heading, murderous traitor would make a better father?” Grant asks, only half-teasing. Because it’s not like he _disagrees_ , but it’s not the choice he’d expect her to make.

Something moves over her face—hard to read in the dim light of the nearly-set sun coming through his windows, but he sees enough to send an odd chill through him.

With it comes a strange, impossible suspicion. It’s so ridiculous he almost doesn’t ask…but he hasn’t lived this long by ignoring his instincts.

“Jemma,” he says slowly. “Was _Fitz_ the one who hit you?”

Her wince is answer enough.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he demands, furious, and rolls off of her. “I’ll kill him, the little—”

“Don’t,” Jemma says, catching his elbow before he gets any further than the edge of the bed. “Don’t even _think_ about it, Grant Ward.”

He lets her pull him back, but he’s not dropping this. No way. “And why shouldn’t I?”

“For one thing, you don’t have the right,” she snaps.

The hell he doesn’t—but if Jemma’s under the impression he’s gonna let her go after this (after maybe knocking her up), this isn’t the moment to dissuade her of it. Instead, he focuses on the issue at hand.

“If Fitz has suddenly gone evil, you _need_ me to handle it,” he points out. “SHIELD’s too soft; you’ll have him still running around causing trouble four years from now.”

There shouldn’t be any way for Jemma to argue that—not when it’s exactly what happened with Grant himself—but he’s not really surprised that she does.

The angle she takes, on the other hand… “Fitz is _not_ evil.”

“No?” he asks, tone heavy enough with sarcasm to get her back up. “Are you gonna tell me you _deserved_ to get hit in the face with a gun?”

“No,” she says, readily enough to ease a little—a very little—of his tension. “I absolutely didn’t. But it’s not entirely Fitz’s fault. He’s…sick.”

“Sick,” Grant echoes. “The flu induces violent urges in him these days, is that it?”

“No,” she says impatiently, “of course not. I just meant…” She stops, sighs, and buries her face in her hands for a moment. When she looks up, she’s wearing a resigned expression that doesn’t pair at all well with the bruise. “How much do you know about what we went through last March?”

It sounds like an attempt at changing the subject, but as Grant suspects it’s actually the start of an explanation, he rolls with it.

“Depends on what you’re talking about,” he says. “Do you mean the crazed Inhuman that chased you all out of the Playground or the thing where you were abducted into the Matrix?”

Jemma grimaces at him, displeased but unsurprised by his level of knowledge. (What can Grant say? He wouldn’t have survived this long if he didn’t keep a close eye on SHIELD and its doings.)

“It was a virtual reality framework, not the Matrix,” she corrects, rather than addressing his spying. “But yes, that’s what I was referring to. Things in the framework were…very different. It was supposed to be a perfect world, created by correcting its subjects’ greatest regrets. Instead, it was hell.”

That’s…quite the condemnation, coming from Jemma. “How so?”

“Think monkey’s paw,” she says, almost companionably wry. “Every corrected regret was twisted to the absolute worst possible end—and Fitz’s saw him turned into a horrible, evil man. He was a high-ranking Hydra scientist, so widely feared that no one even spoke his name. They simply called him _the doctor_ …” She pulls her knees up, hunching over them in a way he doesn’t like at all. “…And he was obsessed with me.”

“Not so different from reality, then,” Grant mutters, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s worried about where this might be going.

“We escaped the framework, though not unscathed, and that should’ve been the end of it.” Her hands fist against her shins. “But he’s recovered so well, we forgot to take into consideration the brain damage you caused.”

He bites his tongue on an automatic protest, filing it—along with the issue of her thinking she gets to leave after this—away for later. He doesn’t want to derail this, not now.

“The framework aggravated it,” she continues. “And the six months he spent alone, isolated in a government cell while the rest of us were trapped in a dystopian nightmare of a future, surely didn’t help.”

Wait, what?

“For the rest of us,” she goes on, like she didn’t just drop a whole other bomb on him, “the lives we lived in the framework mostly faded away. We have all of our other selves’ memories, but their personalities are mostly gone, revealing themselves only in stray comments. But Fitz…”

“Not so much?” Grant guesses.

“No,” she agrees quietly. “Instead, the doctor stayed with Fitz—at first simply as a sort of voice in his head, I think, but two days ago he progressed to hallucinations. When he struck me, he was…confused. He thought he was the doctor and was reacting to some admittedly unkind words on my part.”

Yeah. Nothing in that makes Grant want to kill Fitz any less. (There’s no fixing brain damage—if there was, she’d have done it already—and that means Fitz is now a permanent threat.) But the timeline here raises a whole new line of questioning, and he chooses to focus in on that instead.

“And, what,” he asks, “something about Fitz losing his mind made you wanna get pregnant?”

At that, Jemma actually laughs—relaxing out of her little huddle as she does so, to Grant’s relief.

“No,” she says. “No, that came after.”

“Yeah?” he asks when she doesn’t continue. “When, then?”

To Grant’s surprise, she hesitates. What in her sudden desire to be pregnant could be worse than what she just told him?

“Jemma?” he prompts.

After another long, worrying moment of hesitation, she sighs and crosses her legs.

“We went to the future,” she says simply. “Not—not two days ago, but six months ago.”

“You mentioned,” he reminds her. Not that it makes it any less of a ridiculous bombshell to hear it a second time. “Said it was a dystopian nightmare?”

Mouth thinning, she looks away, towards the window. “It was. Less than a hundred years into the future, the Earth had been utterly destroyed—reduced to nothing more than rubble floating in space—and humanity was living in deplorable conditions, ruled over by the _Kree_.”

Grant blinks, taken aback partially by the revelation and partially by near-snarl on the word Kree. He knows Jemma’s not crazy about aliens—it’s one of the many things they have in common—but she’s never even aimed that tone at _him_ before.

“Not benevolent rulers?” he asks.

“No,” she says shortly.

He doesn’t like the tense way she’s holding herself—not when he has such nice, recent memories of her pliant and boneless on top of him, the way she curled easily into his side for a nap after round five—not at all. So he crawls back across the bed to join her, to tug her into his arms and settle her in his lap.

Jemma resists, of course (she never can make anything easy), but she relaxes after a couple seconds, resting her head on his shoulder and sighing into his neck.

“It was awful,” she says. “Especially coming so soon after the framework.”

“I bet.” He rubs a hand along the outside of her thigh in a nice, soothing pattern, trying to encourage the last little bit of tension out of her.

“There was one good thing, though,” she adds quietly. “We met someone—a man who helped us. Well, first he betrayed us, but given the society in which he was born and raised, I can hardly blame him for being inclined to ruthless pragmatism.”

“Okay…?”

“He proved his worth,” she insists, almost defensively. “When we were escaping back to this time, he sacrificed his life to get us home…or at least, that’s what we all—Deke included—thought would happen if he activated the machine while standing right next to it.”

“But it didn’t?” Grant asks.

“No.” Jemma makes a strange sound—not quite a laugh, but not really anything else, either. “Instead, it brought him back with us.”

Her tone talking about this guy is…weird. He doesn’t know what to make of it, but reminds himself that she said her _only_ other option for getting knocked up was Fitz. If the guy was a threat, she’d have gone to _him_ , not Grant.

“Oh yeah?” he asks. “How’s that working out for him?”

“It’s been an adjustment,” she says, in what’s probably a severe understatement. “And I’ll admit I haven’t been paying him much mind, with everything that’s happened since our return.” She takes a deep breath and sits up—not leaving his lap, but straightening and shifting back so she can meet his eyes. “But apparently he’s been paying _me_ mind…enough to realize that I’m his grandmother.”

…What.

“Somehow, in all the chaos with Fitz’s…relapse…he figured it out. He told me yesterday.”

_What_?

Jemma’s obviously waiting for some kind of response, but Grant—Grant’s got nothing. Just… _what_?

“It’s a lot to take in,” she admits. “But…that’s why I wanted to get pregnant. We’re going to change the future, prevent the Earth from being destroyed and the Kree from taking over—and how better to start than this?”

Okay. Maybe it’s just because Grant’s not a genius, but that…doesn’t make any sense. He puts his shock away, centers himself, and—once he’s sure he can trust his voice—asks, “How does getting pregnant when you know you’ve got a grandkid change anything?”

Far from being annoyed—which is kinda disappointing; he always used to love the grumpy little face she’d make when he questioned her conclusions—Jemma brightens like she’s glad he asked.

“Based on Deke’s age and the typical range of years in which a woman is capable of getting pregnant, it must have been several years from now that I was supposed to have his mother. If it happens _now_ instead…it’s a small change, perhaps, but one from which no end of changes might ripple out.”

Like, say, the fact that she’s one hundred percent _not_ going back to SHIELD after this? Yeah, makes sense.

“The more changes, big _and_ small, that we can make, the better,” she adds.

Grant nods thoughtfully.

“Okay,” he says. “Here’s a change for you, then: I’m not letting you go.”

Jemma stills. “Excuse me?”

He’s still got a hand on her thigh; he slides it up to rest on her stomach instead.

“We just had a really good go at getting you pregnant,” he reminds her. “If it worked, you’re gonna have my kid in there—and if it doesn’t, you’re probably gonna wanna try again, right?”

“Yes, and?”

“And either way, there’s no chance in hell I’m sending you back to SHIELD to get abducted or brainwashed or _hit in the fucking face_ again.” He makes himself smile, gives her hair a little tug. “You should know how this works, sweetheart. This makes you mine.”

Her face darkens swiftly, eyes narrowing in a way that—well, a) has got to hurt with the bruising spreading up along the right side of her face, but also b)—suggests she’s thinking about killing him with her bare hands.

And not that it wouldn’t be cute to see her try, but…

“It’s a hell of a change,” he points out. “You said you wanted as many as possible—and what are the chances the you that led to that future ever even _thought_ about walking away from SHIELD?”

That makes an impact. He can see it.

“And do you really _want_ to go back?” he presses. “Fitz has a brand new split personality, and both halves are obsessed with you. You wanna risk what the doctor might do if he finds out another man got you pregnant?”

Jemma’s hand goes to her mouth. She obviously hadn’t thought of that.

“You’re safer with me,” he says, tapping her bruise very, very gently. “There are twenty layers of security between this room and the outside world. No one here will ever even _look_ at you funny—and forget any threat to our unborn child.” He pauses for a second, lets that sink in. “You think SHIELD can promise the same?”

It takes at least a full minute, but eventually she admits, “No.”

“So,” he starts—and then stops, because her eyes make it clear she’s a million miles away. She’s got her revelation face on, the one that always used to come right before she made some great discovery; he doesn’t wanna derail whatever’s brewing up there.

Thirty seconds later, she shakes herself…and then gives him a shove, urging him back against the headboard as she straddles him.

“Be better,” she says intently.

“What?”

“Be _better_ ,” she repeats, like it explains anything. “Stop all this Hydra nonsense and turn your power and resources to something _good_.”

…That pistol-whip must’ve rattled her brain. So sad to see a genius lose her mind. “Jemma…”

“No, listen,” she interrupts. “This Hydra nonsense—it’s never been what you wanted. We both know that. You didn’t want to conquer the world or to wipe out Inhumans or—or worship Hive. You just wanted power and revenge, to destroy SHIELD.”

Not untrue. “And?”

“And you won!” she says, cupping his face in both hands. “Grant, SHIELD is _done_. It has literally been reduced to less than ten people _living in a bunker_. The government is after us for reasons that, though misguided, are hard to argue. It’s been four years since the uprising and things have only gotten _worse_.”

He’s not gonna lie. Hearing her say that brings him a hell of a warm glow. Still, he’s not sure how it connects to him being ‘better.’

“What’s your point?” he asks.

“My point is that there’s no need to continue this Hydra nonsense when you’ve already won,” she says—and then her eyes light up as some kind of inspiration strikes. “In fact, there’s every reason to do the exact opposite.” She lets go of his face in favor of gripping his shoulders. “Grant. What is the best possible revenge to wield against the team?”

“Killing them all slowly, one by one, in front of Coulson?”

“No,” she says sharply. “Doing our jobs—doing what we set out to do— _better than we did_.”

…Huh.

“Just imagine it,” she murmurs. “Imagine protecting people, making peace between humans and Inhumans, _saving the world_ —imagine how it would make Coulson and the others feel, knowing that you were succeeding where they failed.”

She paints an appealing picture, he has to admit. Almost despite himself, he starts turning it over in his mind, considering the logistics. They couldn’t use the name, of course—SHIELD really is persona non grata these days—but he’s sure he could come up with something close enough to get under the team’s skin. And he’d have to lose some of the less scrupulous grunts, but most of his people are here for a paycheck, not because they want to hail Hydra. And Alpha Team will follow him anywhere, so—

Okay. He might seriously be considering this. It’s time to hit the brakes.

“I’ll think about it,” he says, “and that’s all I’m promising.”

For one thing, nothing good comes of making decisions in the heat of the moment with a woman in your lap. For another…

Jemma’s “That’s all I can ask” is just a little too smug to let her get away with.

So he shifts them, rolls her under him, and gets back to the work of making her scream his name.

No good letting her think she has the upper hand here, after all.


End file.
